One facet of the pollution control problem is waste disposal. Currently and in the past, society has periodically collected household and other waste, such as cans, paper, bottles and the like, and deposited them in dumps, land areas to be filled, and so on. The available waste depositories, however, are rapidly being filled by the ever increasing quantities of waste. Accordingly, society has recognized a need to develop other methods of waste disposal.
One of the waste disposal methods which is gaining increased attention involves reuse of the waste materials. This is commonly referred to as recycling. Recycling involves the processing of each different waste material to a reusable form. This, in turn, necessitates segregation of the various kinds of waste materials such that they can be processed or recycled.
Segregation of the waste can be accomplished at the home or at the recycling facility. Segregation at the recycling facility presents such a monumental task as to render this approach impractical. As a result, many towns have enacted legislature requiring mandatory separation of waste by the disposer, since segregation at the source is the ideal solution.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,720,346 issued to Cypher discloses a compartmented trash receptacle which includes a container with inner partitions which define separate trash compartments for different trash materials.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,904,218 issued to Kostic discloses a trash can unit including a plurality of identical trash cans which rest on a platform which is rotatably mounted on a base member. A common cover includes a plurality of windows, each corresponding to a different trash can.
Great Britain Pat. No. 1,533,841 issued to Goody et al. discloses a multi-compartment refuse bin including a main housing for slidably receiving a plurality of containers disposed side by side within the main housing.
The state of the art compartmented waste receptacles include containers for sorting refuse at the deposit site. However, problems arise with the conventional refuse sorters in that they require an excessive amount of floor space because of the use of juxtapositioned compartments. Therefore, a problem arises in areas where there is a limited amount of floor-space for trash containers which include multi-compartments in juxtaposition.
In addition, conventional containers for sorting refuse do not address the noise problems associated with their use in the home or commercial environments. The problem arises where communities require separation of cans, glass and other refuse. When glass or metal containers are deposited in the same bin, each deposit creates excessive noise as the glass or metal containers contact each other and the container walls. In commercial environments, such as restaurants, the level of noise throughout the dining area should be kept to a minimum so as to not interfere with the atmosphere of the evening.
Another problem associated with conventional waste receptacles is that they are open at the top, thus when glass containers are continuously deposited upon each other the likelihood of breakage increases. Therefore, the safety of those using the container decreases as glass particles may fly from the container and lodge in or lacerate a passerby.